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Chefe Jenneta, Ethiopia: preparing coffee beans before they are sold to the cooperative who, with Oxfam's help, have been helping farmers to get a better price for their coffee.
Photo: Crispin Hughes/Oxfam
Poor people should be able to sell their products to rich countries and work themselves out of poverty. They can’t, though, because the world trade system is unjust.
Rich countries dominate the World Trade Organisation (WTO). They make the rules under which poor countries lose out.
Rich countries also operate double standards. They force poor countries to keep to rules that they don’t obey themselves.
Newly dyed cotton yarn drying outside the workshops of HEED, an Oxfam fair trade partner, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Photo: Crispin Hughes/Oxfam
Rich countries to remove barriers to imports for all poor countries.
A ban on agricultural export subsidies.
An end to attaching conditions to IMF-World Bank loans.
Fair patent rules which ensure that poor countries are able to afford new technologies and basic medicines, and that farmers are able to save, exchange, and sell seeds.
Action to increase prices for primary commodities such as coffee, and to pay more to small farmers.
Better employment standards, especially for women.
A more democratic World Trade Organisation which gives poor countries a stronger voice.
Governments in the developing world to adopt national and regional policies that help poor people to access markets and benefit from trade.
Pak Rohmat finishing newly cast aluminium plant-pots in Klaten, Indonesia. The workshop supplies pewter and cast aluminium products to Oxfam. Photo: Chris Stowers/Oxfam
The one thing you need to do is sign up to the Big Noise Petition. The Big Noise petition represents the voices of people around the world who are
calling for key decision-makers to Make Trade Fair.
At the end of 2005, the Make Trade Fair campaign went on tour with Coldplay - and over 40,000 people voiced their support for a change to global trade rules by signing the Big Noise Petition. Read our campaigner's Coldplay tour blog for details.
Celebrities
Famous faces supporting Make Trade Fair.
Stories
Stories and campaign reports from around the world.
Take action
How you can help now. Online and real-world actions.
A bit sick? Millions of people in developing countries die because they are too poor to pay for vital medicines. Oxfam campaigner Chris Rose took to the streets of London as an executive of 'Profit Pills'... View video at full-size on YouTube >>
